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With proper care and respect, Earth can provide a high quality of life for all people in perpetuity. Yet we devastate productive lands and waters for a quick profit, a few temporary jobs, or a one-time resource fix.

Our current expansion of tar sands oil extraction, deep-sea oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing natural gas extraction, and mountaintop-removal coal mining are but examples of this insanity. These highly profitable choices deepen our economic dependence on rapidly diminishing, nonrenewable fossil-energy reserves, disrupt the generative capacity of Earth’s living systems, and accelerate climate disruption.

A global economy dependent on this nonsense is already failing and its ultimate collapse is only a matter of time. For a surprisingly long time, we humans have successfully maintained the illusion that we are outside of, superior to, and not subject to the rules of nature. We do so, however, at a huge cost, and payment is coming due.

To secure the health and happiness of future generations, we must embrace life as our defining value, recognize that competition is but a subtext of life’s deeper narrative of cooperation, and restructure our institutions to conform to life’s favored organizing principle of radically decentralized, localized decision making and self-organization. This work begins with recognizing what nature has learned about the organization of complex living systems over billions of years.

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I believe that building resilient local communities and economies in a way that regenerates the environment and celebrates the human experience is the work of our generation.  – Toby Barazzuol

Welcome to our first featured Fellow of the month: Toby Barazzuol from Vancouver, B.C.

Each month we’ll be taking a closer look at the people who make up the 2013 BALLE Local Economy Fellowship and sharing insight into what makes them tick, what inspires them to do this work, and why we think they are among the rising stars in Localism.

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Born and raised in Vancouver, BC, Toby founded Eclipse Awards in 1998 with the motto “Happiness Delivered.”  Eclipse creates handcrafted recognition awards that help organizations appreciate and engage their people. “Recognition is about celebrating efforts, bestowing confidence, and creating happiness. It’s also an amazing way to empower people and build more resilient communities. Many people discount recognition as something cute, however when used thoughtfully, it’s pretty powerful and transformative stuff. We use recognition to power up people and communities.”

Awards: 
In 2004 Toby was selected as one of Vancouver’s Top 40 under 40 Entrepreneurs. In 2008 his company  was received a Business Excellence Award from DELL as one of Canada’s Top 10 Small Businesses. In 2011 Toby was recognized as a “Faces of Change” business leader in community building by the North American Association of Asian Professionals, and this year Eclipse Awards was selected as British Columbia’s Best Employer in 2012 by Small Business BC.

Why Place Matters:
Toby’s love of Vancouver has been a lifelong affair, and though he lives and works in the big city, he as a unique and lasting connection to the earth.  Born in the only house inside Stanley Park gave him a unique vantage point to explore nature. (His grandparents ran the Stanley Park Teahouse and his parents lived in a small apartment above the restaurant).  “Growing up in that fertile environment [Stanley Park] definitely gave me a love and appreciation of nature that is still with me today.”

Despite the astronomical costs of living in Vancouver today, Toby is committed to being part of the fabric that will make Vancouver an attractive community for years to come.  And the love of nature has given him an entrepreneurial dream: “I have 22 acres of forested property in Squamish that has absolutely nothing on it but trees, and one day I will build a tree house community there.”

His approach to community building and collaboration is also innovative and inspired by nature. Through his experiences of adopting sustainability at his own business, Toby realized that individual companies can only achieve so much on their own. “When you work alone you reach a ‘sustainability ceiling’ and in order to reach the next level of sustainability, you need to start forming partnerships and collaborations with other organizations.” For example, recycling organics is not something that an individual businesses can easily accomplish on its own, however when you get 50 businesses together, it becomes a possibility. Think of nature’s most productive ecosystems and they are always the result of a diverse collection of organisms that are working together. Our economies are the same - once you start developing partnerships across all sectors of society with a focus on positive community building, productive new opportunities will always emerge.”

“I believe that you can build stronger businesses by first building stronger communities and I’ve found this approach to be both effective yet relatively uncommon. My work is influenced by the principles of permaculture and natural systems, so I look at community building in a holistic way that includes businesses, artists and residences as equally important components of society. I also strive to infuse beauty and happiness into my work. These simple things make work meaningful and they can be enjoyed by everyone.”

For nearly eight years Toby has  been exploring the intersection of business, community, sustainability, local economy, social capital, job creation, and urban agriculture in one of the most challenging and diverse neighborhoods in North America.  Through hundreds of community meetings he has learned firsthand about community building, and has come to believe that you can accomplish much more with building than through fighting.  He understands how to develop relationships and to build the foundations of a movement while harnessing the power of collaboration and through the magic that can happen when egos are removed. “I’ve earned the respect of my peers and community as a dedicated leader with integrity and a passion for sustainability. Most importantly, I continue to dream of ways to make the world a healthier, happier, and more beautiful place.”

Toby’s goals for his work as a BALLE Local Economy Fellow include:

1. Redefine the meaning of value and profit in the emerging new economy
2. Transform consumer perceptions on the importance of buying locally
3. Reframe the value of collaboration and diversity versus competition
4. Reimagine communities as ecosystems and open dialogues between business, art, and residential sectors.
5. Continue to build the connection between urban agriculture and food security as a way to build more resilient low-income communities.
6. Share the importance and power of recognition as a tool to empower emerging leaders, develop social capital, build resilient communities, and celebrate the human experience.

Toby’s Local Economy Dream for Vancouver is for the broader community to have a deeper understanding of what sustainability means. “People focus on clean-tech, green jobs and recycling, but we need to expand the conversation about what it means to be sustainable.  We need to ignite people’s imaginations with a vision of regenerating the environment and building an economy that values the sacred - aiming for zero is no longer enough!”

We agree Toby, go forth and regenerate!  We can’t wait to see the accelerated mark you will be making on Vancouver and beyond.

Follow Toby on Twitter at @tobybarazzuol.

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At the heart of the reason why our multicultural society remains segmented is our lack of familiarity with each other. For example, the different ethnic groups in my neighborhood share very little in common as far as cuisine or native language. Naturally, they are unfamiliar with each other’s cultures. Each family tends to associate with others from their same ethnic group. The lack of familiarity among different groups leads to separateness, which can lead to stereotyping. In comparison, communities where members are more familiar with each other tend to have more of the mingling and interaction that makes neighborhoods vibrant and wonderful. 

To my own amazement, I have observed how the growth of the local food movement is helping to change race relations for the better. As awareness about the dangerous chemical methods used to farm conventionally grown food spreads, demand for local organic food is spreading across color lines. The simple act of eating differently is radically changing race relations as diverse communities interact in newly forming local food economies.

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After Superstorm Sandy, neighborhood networks [...] were activated quickly around the five boroughs. Community-based groups such as Red Hook Initiative in Brooklyn (where I volunteered after the storm), which already had deep roots in the area, were able to call on existing relationships and get help where it was needed, even as government and national relief organizations were falling short.

What’s more, in places where different social groups had robust internal connections but didn’t really interact with each other, storm survival and recovery provided a framework for building new alliances. They haven’t always been seamless or comfortable, but they have been happening.

It happened in Red Hook, where residents of the public housing projects found themselves working alongside business owners from the gentrified streets nearby. It happened in the often fractious Rockaways, where surfers and firefighters and everyone else has pitched in to clean the streets and rip moldy sheetrock from homes, despite past resentments and divisions. For the most part, strength has built on strength.

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